Venture Insider: Boot Camp or Bust?

12/8/2011 3:39PM

In the first of a series of reports that looks inside the world of venture capital and tech start-ups, WSJ's Andy Jordan profiles a start-up "chatID" as it goes through an accelerator program and also looks at what some consider a glut of seed-stage companies.

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

I ... when ... the checks started to mock today's economy ... it's hard to know which buttons to push We and ... enter Excel readers ... would York City's tech starts ... to become a crucial stepping stone for many startups it's all readers are a new phenomenon ... so readers really do short time ... mentorship program and it's ... between small amount of money invested ... in last three months in our case and that the said Monday that it was the start of school ... and for many of them it's actually replacing school ... twenty year old and her an in built into its first startup Bright after high school ... today he's delivering the good stories Company ... chat ID ... to a room full of hundreds of investors ... at TechStars demo day were a universal platform that our stock communication between businesses and consumers ... anywhere around the web and from any mobile device ... what are technology really enables is communication between us and businesses I'm at the same scale ... as the forest in Tishman ... province force individuals ALMs or texting and chatting with each other more and more ... friends and family ... etc and and now we're enabling is just not see it reaches the same level between Aaseng businesses TechStars was impress ... the determines Chadha ID along with eleven other companies from a pool of about twelve hundred ... who applied for the three month intensive start-up bootcamp ... Beat's this early stage start-ups how to get going and how to refine their pitch ... to potential investors ... we are ... on ... it is ... don't care comes with food both literal and figurative three bought ... start-ups are paired with mentors to guide him through every stage of getting off the ground to figuring out exactly what we're going to market with the shocking going a market think even in the dealer's price tag ... on customer acquisition of a lot of ... great customer ... introductions partner in productions ... of both been really help on the fundraising side as well as practices ... ideally it prepares us for today three months of trading for just one day of teaching ... we are ... and one ... no one ... now ... the presentation one as well as he could possibly hopes me if you commit ... just like email on right after I got on stage which was interesting ... all told ... the tide he picked up a couple of new team to investors after demo days ... ceiling it's eager to accelerate use our reflecting with some entrepreneur estate is in venture capital trend ... of ceding more companies with less upfront cash the trendy teen is ... and nothing less money early on to more CDO one hundred thousand dollar VC investments ... one ... million dollars for good going rounds ... where those investors are really trying to focus more resources and are less crystal ball ... more you know ... the spaghetti and so on see what happens with the trend toward less money and it sort of excessive that more people and funds can be smaller and still haven't unpacked ... according to Dow Jones VentureSource not only has the number of seed grounds gone up ... since two thousand ate ... so have their individual amounts ... the median size of a seed round to hit one million in the first three quarters of two thousand eleven ... double the five hundred fifty thousand median ... into thousandnine ... the tougher task for start-ups these days according to some ... is getting past seed stage there is a ... potential cash crunch at some stage I don't think it's a really didn't help that the seed stage I think there is plenty of money for ... quality companies to get going ... I think it's built to prove points to get to that next round ... that become the struggle to get from seed to irrigated the dots were companies really just up to do well to get to that next level and the funding treat now the state is to build long term companies that don't have to hit the escape button ... after just getting